Late last year, Microsoft Edge gained a battery-saving mode that reduces the browsers’ demand for system resources. But this “Energy Saver” also slows Edge a bit, hampering the browsing experience. That’s why the latest Edge update takes a more proactive approach to efficiency by improving the sleeping tabs feature.
Microsoft Edge gained “sleeping tabs” in late 2021 with the version 89 update. The feature is pretty simple—if you aren’t using a tab, it goes to “sleep,” reducing the browser’s overall CPU and RAM usage by 99% and 85% per tab (according to Microsoft, that is). Tab sleeping happens without the user’s knowledge, as tabs reactivate the second you click them.
But the Edge version 100 update takes things a step further. On average, 8% more tabs will fall asleep, as Edge now targets “pages that are sharing a browsing instance with another page.”
Yeah, Microsoft’s wording is pretty weird here—our educated guess, for what it’s worth, is that the company is talking about browser contexts, not instances. So, if two tabs of Google Docs are communicating to share system resources, one may be put to sleep. (We’ll update this article when we know for sure.)
Additionally, the Edge Performance menu now features an “estimated memory savings” dial. This small graph shows you how many tabs are asleep, plus all the memory you’re saving because of the feature.
Microsoft Edge should update automatically. That said, you can force an update by pasting edge://settings/help in the Edge address bar and pressing enter. (Edge will tell you if you’re running the latest version.)
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